chance is always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and perhaps gain more by the refidence of the army than they lose by the obftruction of their port.

Their charters being now, I fuppofe, legally forfeited, may be modelled as fhall appear moft commodious to the mother-country. Thus the privileges, which are found by experience liable to mifufe, will be taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, blufter as foldiers, and domineer as legiflators, will fink into fober merchants and filent planters, peaceably diligent, and fecurely rich.

But there is one writer, and perhaps many who do not write, to whom the contraction of thefe pernicious privileges appears very dangerous, and whò startle at the thoughts of England free and America in chains. Children fly from their own fhadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chain's is undoubtedly a dreadful word; but perhaps the masters of civil wifdom may difcover fome gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be reftrained without them. This conteft may end in the fofter phrafe of English Superiority and American Obe dience.

We are told, that the fubjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties: an event, which none but very perfpicacious politicians are able to foresee. If flavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudeft yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

But let us interrupt a while this dream of con

queft,

queft, fettlement, and fupremacy. Let us remem ber that being to contend, according to one orator, with three millions of Whigs, and according to another, with ninety thoufand patriots of Maffachufet's Bay, we may poffibly be checked in our career of reduction. We may be reduced to peace upon equal terms, or driven from the western continent, and forbidden to violate a second time the happy borders of the land of liberty. The time is now perhaps at hand, which Sir Thomas Browne predicted between jest and earnest,

When America fhould no more send out her treasure,

But spend it at home in American pleasure.

If we are allowed upon our defeat to ftipulate conditions, I hope the treaty of Boston will permit us to import into the confederated Cantons fuch products as they do not raise, and fuch manufactures as they do not make, and cannot buy cheaper from other nations, paying like others the appointed customs; that if an English fhip falutes a fort with four guns, it fhall be answered at least with two; and that if an Englishman be inclined to hold a plantation, he shall only take an oath of allegiance to the reigning powers, and be fuffered, while he lives inoffenfively, to retain his own opinion of English rights, unmolested in his conscience by an oath of abjuration.

A

JOURNEY

TO THE

WESTERN ISLANDS

OF

SCOTL A N D.

I

HAD defired to vifit the Hebrides, or Weftern Iflands of Scotland, fo long, that I fcarcely remember how the wifh was originally excited; and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey, by finding in Mr. Bofwell a companion, whofe acuteness would help iny enquiry, and whofe gaiety of converfation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniencies of travel, in countries lefs hofpitable than we have paffed.

On the eighteenth of Auguft we left Edinburgh, a city too well known to admit defcription, and directed our course northward, along the eastern coaft of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who could stay with us only long enough to fhow us how much we loft at feparation.

As we croffed the Frith of Forth, our curiofity was attracted by Inch Keith, a small ifland, which neither of my companions had ever vifited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives folicited their notice. Here, by climbing with fome VOL. VIII. difficulty

P

difficulty over shattered crags, we made the first experiment of unfrequented coafts. Inch Keith is nothing more than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of grafs, and very fertile of thistles. A small herd of cows grazes annually upon it in the fummer. It seems never to have afforded to man or beast a permanent habitation.

We found only the ruins of a small fort, not fo injured by time but that it might be eafily reftored to its former ftate. It feems never to have been intended as a place of strength, nor was built to endure a fiege, but merely to afford cover to a few foldiers, who perhaps had the charge of a battery, or were ftationed to give fignals of approaching danger. There is therefore no provifion of water within the walls, though the fpring is fo near, that it might have been easily enclosed. One of the ftones had this infcription: " Maria Reg. 1564." It has probably been neglected from the time that the whole ifland had the fame king.

We left this little ifland with our thoughts employed a while on the different appearance that it would have made, if it had been placed at the fame diftance from London, with the fame facility of approach; with what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have been purchased, and with what expenfive industry they would have been cultivated and adorned.

When we landed, we found our chaise ready, and paffed through Kinghorn, Kirkaldy, and Cowpar, places not unlike the small or ftraggling market-towns in thofe parts of England where commerce and manufactures have not yet produced opulence.

Though

Though we were yet in the most populous part of Scotland, and at so small a distance from the capital, we met few paffengers..

The roads are neither rough nor dirty; and it affords a fouthern ftranger a new kind of pleasure to travel fo commodioufly without the interruption of toll-gates. Where the bottom is rocky, as it feems commonly to be in Scotland, a smooth way is made indeed with great labour, but it never wants repairs; and in those parts where adventitious materials are neceffary, the ground once consolidated is rarely broken; for the inland commerce is not great, nor are heavy commodities often tranfported otherwife than by water. The carriages in common ufe are fmall carts, drawn each by one little horfe; and a man feems to derive fome degree of dignity and importance from the reputation of poffeffing a two-horse cart.

ST. ANDREWS.

At an hour fomewhat late we came to St. Andrews, a city once archiepifcopal; where that univerfity ftill fubfifts in which philofophy was formerly taught by Buchanan, whofe name has as fair a claim to immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity, and perhaps a fairer than the inftability of vernacular languages admits.

We found, that by the interpofition of fome invifible friend, lodgings had been provided for us at the houfe of one of the profeffors, whofe eafy civility quickly made us forget that we were ftrangers; and in the whole time of our stay we were gratified by every mode of kindness, and entertained with all the elegance of lettered hofpitality.

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In